How Save Money Moving & More

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we’re here to help you with your residence improvement projects, your decor quagmires. Whatever is on your to-do list, give us a call right now. We’ll help you get that job done. The crowd is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, this spring, billions of Americans is likely to be putting their residence on world markets. But the majority of members of them are not even going to think about how they’ll move all their stuff until after their room dumps, which in fact is too late to make a smart decision. So we’re going to have some tips-off, this hour, to help you save meter, hassle and cash.

LESLIE: And have you ever acknowledged a cranny in a wall over your groundwork and wondered if it’s something that you should be am concerned about or not? Well, Tom Silva from This Old-time House is stopping by with tips on how is to determine whether a fracture is something that needs attention or precisely a normal part of your home that’s settling in.

TOM: And you might think that you’re done with all that spring cleansing but your residence actually might be dirtier than you think. We’ll share the areas more often missed by even "the worlds largest" thorough cleaners, including some that can actually become health hazards.

LESLIE: But first, we want to know what you are working on this spring season. Everybody is gearing up towards Memorial Day and it’s still early in the spring time of year. So, what can we help you with? What are you working on? I know I’m about to do a big project in my garden. You can tell; all my reactions are kicking in, which is why I sound like this. This is what happens when you’re digging in your yard for a week at a time. You purpose up seeming like this from all the pollen.

So what can we do to help you? Give us a summon. We want to lend you a hand.

TOM: The amount is 1-888-MONEY-PIT. Plus, if you do give us a bawl, we’ve went copies of our bible, My house, My Money Pit, going out to five listeners who summon or pole their question. To are contributing to get a start on those spring projects, generate us a call right now. That number, again: 888-666-3974.

Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Charles in Ohio is on the line and are addressed by some puppies that are ready to really eat away at the yard. What’s going on?

CHARLES: I was wondering if there’s an saving nature to fix my trouble I’m having in my backyard. I have a fence that’s square-shaped in the back of my ground, if you count the back of the house. I have two bird-dogs and they like to run from one surface of the house to the other, leaving a dirt direction- hardened, broiled road- from one side of the house to the other. And I’m looking for a path to fix that that would be easy on my pocketbook.

TOM: OK. So, can we control the dogs so that they won’t wear it out again if we reinstate the lawn?

CHARLES: No. The dogs, they- any time they see anything come across in front of our residence, they like to run from one slope to the other. So without chaining them up, which defeats the purpose of our fence, we like to let them move free.

TOM: You know what? A couple of things come to mind, one of which is that the kind of grass that "youve had" there- I was thinking, Leslie, that something like a zoysia grass might be a little bit tougher.

LESLIE: It is very, particularly durable.

Now, the other thing I was thinking- is this directly in the front of your house or is it on the side of your home?

CHARLES: The barrier is currently under back of the house, so mostly it’s a big smiley face from the left side of the house to the right side because they run around the- my deck.

LESLIE: I was going to say if there’s a lane to make a slate pathway or some sort of stone that plainly would change the seek of the yard itself but would give you an area that’s not going to be constantly scratched away at.

CHARLES: That sounds very feasible.

LESLIE: And that’s not very difficult to do. You can altogether create a pathway exerting some edger or you can get remains of slate at any sort of stone yard. You can think about a ton of different ways to do it. Pavers. You can pick a price point and stick to it.

CHARLES: That sounds great. Will the dogs, because I framed stone back there, stay off of that and create a new course or will that not feign the dogs at all?

TOM: I don’t think so. I belief the dogs want to run against that barricade, so they’ll probably "ve been trying to" get as closely connected to it as possible.

CHARLES: That sounds great. I sure do appreciate it. I’ll look into some stone work then that- where I can make a smiley face croaking- back of my house.

TOM: Alright, Charles. Good luck with that activity. Thanks so much for announcing us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Now we’ve went Dawn in Florida who seems to be a quality enthusiast looking to retexture a ceiling.

Dawn, I think this a first. How can we help you?

DAWN: My home is about a year-and-a-half old and when they textured the ceiling, it’s a flame orange peel, same concept they did on the walls. And they said it would be easier and more economical to do that than to try to do a slick hair on my ceiling. I don’t think that’s true-life. Instead now, a year-and-a-half last-minute into it, then I noticed that you can still see the dirt commemorates.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of research on painting and they have all this Venetian plaster and all these different techniques. And I often got to wondering if I could do that on a ceiling- the same wall skill on a ceiling.

TOM: What does the ceiling look like right now? Like how deep is the texture that "youve had"?

DAWN: Very light. It is a very light orange peel but you are able see the strip and the mudding. Late at night, I look up there and I’m like, “I can still realise the lines where the drywall goes together.” So, you can definitely see it raised.

TOM: I’m concerned that even if you do kept the Venetian plaster kind of paint on that, that it might not be thick fairly. Because if you can see the videotape and the mud, it means that the ceiling was never properly spackled. And if it wasn’t accurately spackled, you’re likely to see that through no matter what you do.

DAWN: Well, what do you think I should do? You think I should hire somebody to come in and precisely redo my ceilings? It’s not a very big house. It’s actually an ICF-construction mansion. It’s got solid concrete walls with rebar. And so it’s very solidly constructed and I went through a lot of disturbance to have it done so a typhoon couldn’t blow me away. But I demand it to look good on the inside, as well.

TOM: ICF stands for shielded concrete assembles, for those working in our gathering that have never heard that term consumed. And it’s a tremendous way to build a house because it is hurricane-proof. Literally, all the things that come thrown around in a typhoon will not pierce the outside of the house. You’d be surprised how immediate a 2x4 could be jammed right through a building that’s spawned with wood siding or even vinyl surfacing. Could be even worse.

And the ceiling itself, if it wasn’t perfectly spackled, I’m concerned that if you set anything on top of that, it’s going to show through. So I would suggest then- what you might want to do is to sand- have individual come in and beach those areas that are not properly spackled. Do a good job spackling them and then thinly sand the whole thing, threw a good hair of primer over it and then- because this is a repair, it’s not about to become a smooth as if it wasn’t a amend. So then you could use a plaster decorate- a Venetian plaster or a textured paint- as a final step. Does that make sense?

DAWN: OK. Well, I think we’re on the same page and I appreciate it.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on breeze and online at MoneyPit.com. Give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor, where it’s easy to find top-rated, local home improvement pros for any home project. Go to HomeAdvisor.com.

TOM: And just ahead, are you thinking of selling your home the following spring? Have you planned how you’ll move all your nonsense? Smart homeowners to be considered selling and moving at the same time. We’re going to share tip-off on how to do time that, in today’s Pro Project presented by HomeAdvisor.com, next.

Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: What are you working on? Give us a call right now. The crowd is 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888 -6 66 -3 974.

Mental note, Leslie, if you’re going to do some concrete exertion around your house. This weekend, I decided that I was going to form- actually, say, a little bit last week- said I would form a bow alongside of a paver walkway because the edges were starting to slump a bit bit. And I want something super solid, you know, so that wouldn’t happen. So I words it up. I represent I exercised chalk strands and stakes and 2x4s and it- dig it out and positioned some gravel on the bottom of the curbed arena and it seemed excellent. Said, “OK. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to pour this sucker.” Well, then we got an inch-and-a-half of sprinkle overnight.

LESLIE: Oh , no.

TOM: I had to do it- the whole thing all over again as soon as that rainwater stopped.

So, if you’ve had a project proceed awry, we feel your pain. Give us a summon, right now, and we’ll help get you out of that jam-pack. The count is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Rich in Illinois needs some help with a make-up project. Tell us what you’re working on.

RICH: I’m working on a residence that I’ve been living in since 1988. And the bottom four divisions of my sword siding save peeling. It’s like a 30-foot-long article. Each segment is 8 inches wide. And it has a wood-grain pattern on it; looks like it’s been stomped. And every two years, I approach this project. First time, I made a cable brushing to it and beat all the loose off and primary it. And 2 years later, I was doing it again.

And every year, I try a different method. I tried a wire rotate on a teach. Last-place time, I made an aura compressor and a hose and a instruct and a wire wheel and went down to the bare metal.

TOM: Wow.

RICH: And went to the paint store and they gave me some primer and some paint. And seemed like everything I try- I bathe it with draw thinner sometimes before I do it. Sometimes I simply use soap and spray. I ever make sure it’s a nice, baked date- about 80 magnitudes- when I cover it. And it seems to always come back about every two to three years.

I know it should be replaced but I kind of like the siding. But it’s steel and it’s- the company is no longer in business now and so the warranty is up on it.

TOM: And there’s different qualities of steel. So even though they are it had a rust-resistant finish on it, it could have just worn off. And I wonder if whatever process they used is what’s causing the decorate to not stick.

When you primary it, are you using an oil-based primer or are you expending an alkyd primer?

RICH: Both. I’ve exploited both. I don’t know if it’s the primer that I use or if it’s- I’ve even went down to no depict at all and precisely the galvanized picture and- I don’t know. I don’t know what it- I don’t know if it’s the primer or what I’m abusing to dry the siding with that’s inducing it or it’s the decorate. I tried four or five different kinds of paint on this and primer.

TOM: What I would do- I signify if I was primary it- and you been in a position to done this already. But what I would do is I would use same manufacturer’s primer and depict. So, for example, I don’t think you can go wrong with Rust-Oleum. That’s pretty much one of the best metal draws of all.

I would use the red Rust-Oleum primer- the oil-based primer- and I would cause it thoroughly dry after you fling off all the loose depict and sand it and make sure the surface is ready to accept it. But I would use the oil-based Rust-Oleum primer which, by the way, makes forever to cool. Depends on the condition but three or four or five hours is not remarkable. And then, I would use the Rust-Oleum topcoat. Again, oil-based. And I rarely recommend oil-based but in this situation, I think that’s what’s going to give you the best adhesion.

Now, Rich, there’s one other piece of advice that we could give you on this and it comes from a process that’s extremely- that’s done very often when people work on automobiles. There’s a make called Prep-Sol- P-r-e-p-S-o-l. And it’s a solvent that’s designed to be applied to bare metal before the primer. You might want to look that up as- I don’t know what - you told you to exerting a solvent. I don’t know if you were exploiting mineral salt- mineral forces or something like that- but this is specifically uttered for it. Just Google it. It’s announced Prep-Sol- P-r-e-p- S-o-l. And it’s a cleaning solvent.

RICH: OK. Do I apply it with a brush or a cloth or ...?

TOM: You apply it with a cloth. Use a clean-living cloth and you apply it - you immerse it in with the cloth.

RICH: Yeah, I’ll try that. Thank you.

TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that campaign. Thanks so much for announce us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, billions of Americans are putting their live on the market this spring season but the majority of members of them won’t even to be considered how they’ll move all their stuff until after they sell their house, which kind of is too late to make a smart decision. So, to help, we’ve got a few gratuities to save time, hassle and cash.

TOM: Now, first, contrary to favourite tradition, the best time to start strategy your move is as soon as you decide to sell your home. Some of the stuff you’ll do to prepare a home for sale can actually help with the moving process. Chores like sprucing up and cleaning out the wardrobes and the basements or the attics render plenty of time to purge and coordinate as "theres going", meaning there’s going to be a lot less to do formerly your home is under contract.

LESLIE: Now, there are a number of factors that can impact that plan to move and that’s including the distance to your new home.

Now, a neighbourhood move could totally be a do-it-yourself job while a long-distance move clearly makes screening and elect a professional moving company to assist you in with that. So, you’ve got to be be available to compare written guesses, ask for recent referrals and show their mover credentials.

Unfortunately, this is one area where bad contractors thrive and some will even threaten to hold your occasions captive until the greenback is paid. You hear about this more often than you don’t hear about it. And it’s kind of a scary thing because, rightfully, some person you time match is literally driving away with everything you own in one truck.

TOM: Yeah. With moving, any quantity of stuff more than a few cases carloads is not a DIY project. So, you want to be sure to choose your pro extremely carefully, including interpret real examines from buyers who have exercised the movers in the past, in places like HomeAdvisor.com, to make sure you and your nonsense arrive on time, undamaged and on budget.

LESLIE: Joyce in Missouri is on the line with a floor-finishing question. How can we help you?

JOYCE: I do have a question about my hardwood. It’s the old-fashioned, solid hardwood from- it was put down back in the 50 s. I affection it and I refinished it, oh, probably about 15 to 17 years ago. And with the time and traffic, the top is wearing now and I need to sand it down and resurface it. When I did it then, I used GYM-SEAL. But I want to know what would be the best product that would be long-term live and something that would be user-friendly for an individual.

TOM: OK. So, first of all, in terms of the sanding-it-down part, does the floor have any truly severe wear or is it just the finish that’s worn?

JOYCE: Just the finish.

TOM: So you don’t have to sand it down the whole way. What you can do is you can mostly only gently sand the surface. There is a machine called a U-Sand machine, which is like an abrasive saucer sander that you can rent at a home core or a hardware store. It has four abrasive saucers in it. It does have a vacuum organisation building in it is therefore doesn’t leave dust all over the place.

But it won’t wear down the timber too much. It’ll just sort of take that top seam of finish off and get it ready to be refinished. Because with hardwood floors, you don’t want to sand them totally down if you don’t have to, because that makes many years off their life when you take all that finish off down to the raw wood. It’s truly not necessary.

And then after you sand it, then you can apply an oil-based polyurethane. So not water-based but oil-based. Not acrylic-based but oil-based. And you’re going to apply that with what’s called a “lambswool applicator.” It’s kind of like a mop. And you dip it into a paint tray, you apply it in a extremely smooth, even coat. Start on one point, toil your way out the door and then leave for a good four or five, six hours depending on the weather.

JOYCE: OK. With the windows open?

TOM: Yeah. Yeah. If it’s a delightful, dry era and the windows are open, that’s very good thing. But only remember: whatever it says for dehydrating meter on the can, at the least doubled it because it tends to be a bit sticky for a while.

JOYCE: OK. So an oil-based polyurethane and a lambswool applicator.

TOM: Yup. And then with a light-footed sanding before you start the whole situation. OK?

JOYCE: Sounds incredible. Thank you so very much and you all have a wonderful day.

TOM: Thanks, Joyce. Good luck with that activity. Thanks so much for announcing us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

You know, we get more the issues of floorings than any other topic on this program.

LESLIE: And they occupy a huge parcel of your residence. And there’s ever something to do with them.

TOM: They do. And they take a lot of defamation, so that’s probably why people need to fix them all the time.

LESLIE: They do.

Now we’ve get Doug in Virginia on the line with a siding question. How can we help you?

DOUG: Yes. I had- my son’s house has some vinyl backing on it. And the kinfolks that owned it before he did were patching something with some of the spray-foam insulation- the crack-filler stuff- and it exuded out all over the siding. So I know I can go back and cut it loose, cut what’s extra stuff. But when I get down close to the vinyl, "whats being" I empty the residue off with to make it clean without damaging the vinyl?

TOM: It’s very difficult because you get- those foams are usually polyurethane and they have real adhesive qualities to it. Real adhesive. So, what you can do is try to gently scratching it off with a putty knife. But make sure you use- an elderly one is better because it won’t is immensely so abrupt. And very carefully do that.

And then, I’ve stripped off some sud- errant sud- with WD-4 0 as the solvent. So you might want to try that with a ScotchPad because ScotchPad is not abrasive. But you were able to scatter the backing with the WD-4 0 and then work the ScotchPad back and forth. You may find that you draw away some of that residue. It truly depends on what kind of foam it is. But you’re right, formerly it’s dry, to cut as much of it off and then "ve been trying to" abrade the rest of it off. But do so with a recollection not to damage the siding.

DOUG: OK. Well, I’ll give it a try. WD-4 0.

TOM: Yep. Try it. It’s one of the thousand uses for that stuff. They say you only need two things in your implement paraphernalium: WD-4 0 and canal tape. They’re pretty close.

DOUG: Then I can go over the whole back of the house with WD-40 to revitalize the vinyl, right?

TOM: Well, I wouldn’t- if it’s the whole back of the house, if you’re talking about spot-cleaning, OK. But if it’s the whole back of the house, then I think you’ve got a bigger problem. I think you’re looking at new siding.

DOUG: But would I get an oily recognise when I use the WD-4 0 that will appear different than the rest of it?

TOM: You will, you will. But soap and water will take it away.

DOUG: I guess that’ll fade, yeah.

LESLIE: That’s why it’s good for only like a little spot.

DOUG: Alright. Well, thanks a lot.

LESLIE: Alright. Thanks so much for calling The Money Pit.

Cracks in your footing might be nothing major to worry about or they could be a sign of a bigger problem. So, how do you know the difference? We’ll was talking about, in precisely a bit.

TOM: We’d love to hear from you about what you’re working on this beautiful springtime weekend. Give us a call, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor.com. Never is concerned at overpaying for a enterprise. Use HomeAdvisor’s True Cost Guide and realize what others pay off similar activities, all for free, at HomeAdvisor.com.

And if you pick up the phone and impart us a call, right now, we’ll toss your name in The Money Pit hard hat because we’re giving away five two copies of our volume, My house, My Money Pit: Your Guide to Every Home Improvement Adventure.

LESLIE: Margaret in Arkansas is on the line with a tiling question. What can we do for you?

MARGARET: I’ve got a big imagination. I expected that there was a make out there that would equal it.

LESLIE: OK.

MARGARET: I’ve got an age-old flooring that I was hoping that I could perhaps crowd the cracks and the little locates it’s chipped out and then refinish the whole storey to where it looked like new.

TOM: Yeah, that’s- I would not pursue that. Because you know what? First of all, the reason it cracked is probably because the subfloor wasn’t properly installed or has diluted for some reason. Because tiles don’t bend. And if they’re cracking, that means that the floor is weak underneath.

So, except in cases of the periodic odd amend when you’re precisely fixing like one or two cracked tiles, it’s not the kind of thing that you want to invest any time in whatsoever.

MARGARET: So, the best thing is just to take it up or ...?

TOM: You can either take it up or you could actually kept a brand-new floor on top of that if you don’t want it to be tile. You could, for example, invest a laminate floor on top of that, which goes down in interlocking bits. And then that sort of hovers on top of the tile; it’s not physically fixed. It just sort of stays in place by its own weight. It’s very beautiful and exceedingly sturdy trash and not too expensive. Certainly a lot cheaper than redoing the tile floor.

MARGARET: OK. Laminate is what it’s called.

TOM: Laminate. It’s announced “laminate floor.” Lots and bunches of different types out there.

MARGARET: OK. Thank you so much.

TOM: Alright, Margaret. Good luck with that projection. Thanks so much for come us at 888 -MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, something that you might not be aware of is that movement is all around you. It’s your residence. Now, you might not realize this but your home is always expanding and sickening with temperature reforms and resolving.

TOM: And that change can cause rifts to your foundation. But how do you know if a fracture is serious or precisely the result of some ordinary residence action? For that, we turn to Tom Silva, members of the general contractor on TV’s This Old House.

Welcome, Tom.

TOM SILVA: Thanks, people. Nice to be here.

TOM: So, I’m sure just about every residence has its share of cracks, liberty?

TOM SILVA: It sure does because the house is always moving, as Leslie says.

TOM: And there are a lot of reasons that that happens?

TOM SILVA: There are a lot of reasons that it happens. Wind, number one. But in the foot, it’s expansion and reduction from various times of the season. You get a cold region, you’re going to get swelling from the ice and in the winter it’s going to relax, so the pressure on the wall is going to push back.

TOM: And you get more structural questions, like poverty-stricken sewage? You get a lot of water around the foundation?

TOM SILVA: Absolutely. That’s why you want to relieve that pressure so the ice doesn’t form and less possibility of pushing against the wall.

TOM: So if we discover these crackings, how do we assess the extent to which it’s a minor sort of unimportant sound or one that are actually asks some notice?

TOM SILVA: A small, hairline hit is pretty common and that is typically happen in the swarm of the wall. The give with the daylight is- too much sunlight, it could set up a little bit extremely quick and it’s really not an issue. But if you get a crack that’s wide or get wider or you’re unsure, what I like to do is take a pencil or a Sharpie and glean a line from all the regions of the crack and then go across a season and see if it has drooped, if the line has moved.

LESLIE: Oh, that’s really smart.

TOM SILVA: And that tells you that there’s been some settling underneath, that maybe some organic matter got underneath the backfill process and has rotted away.

TOM: Like a tree stump or something like that? Mm-hmm.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, yeah. Or inadequate sewage or perhaps water getting underneath, bathing some sediment away. And it’s going to cause it to settle.

Another type of foundation crack is a horizontal crack. And lot of periods, you see that in a blocking foundation where there’s too much pressure against the wall.

TOM: Right.

TOM SILVA: And those are ones that would really concern me because the wall is actually bowing in to the base.

TOM: Hmm. It’s actually displaced.

TOM SILVA: Right, right.

LESLIE: So too much adversity may be from the backfill when the foundation was spewed back in or from the heavines of such structures above? What would motive that pressing?

TOM SILVA: Or too the freezing/ thawing outside because of the poorest of the poor drainage. So there’s a lot of issues there.

TOM: So you get a lot of water in that soil and that spray is going to expand that soil and push on the wall and it kind of ratchets it over the years.

TOM SILVA: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

TOM: It gets a little worse every year; doesn’t go back.

TOM SILVA: Yeah. No , no. It doesn’t go back. When it expands out and in the summertime when it bone-dries, the soil descends back in, completes the bit void from the vibrations of airplanes and trucks and gale and everything else. Then it freezes. Now you have a little more bite to push it out a bit more. So it’s exclusively going to get worse.

TOM: So "when youve got" that stage of sort of structural cranny, that might be a good time to call in key experts, like a structural designer, correct?

TOM SILVA: Structural architect is the best method to go right there. He’s going to tell you how to fix and solve that problem.

LESLIE: And he doesn’t do the job himself, so that’s kind of like a good , non-biased belief of what needs to be done.

TOM SILVA: Yeah, yeah. You are going to pay this person to tell you how to fix the problem and then you’re going to hire individual that’s vanishing to choose the problem.

TOM: And adopt his advice.

TOM SILVA: Absolutely. To the T.

TOM: I ever think it’s a good suggestion to have the engineer "il be back later" and kind of sign off on the project, because that sort of becomes a pedigree. Says it was done right.

TOM SILVA: If I have an technologist come on website to do anything in the chamber of representatives, if he said we have to do something, he then comes back and said, “Yeah, it’s OK,” you’ve done it right.

TOM: Right. Good advice. Now, if you have a minor hit and one that you do want to tackle yourself, how would you approach that?

TOM SILVA: First thing I would do is I would open that rift up. I’d take a 1/2 -inch chisel and I would go down the fracture and make it wider and I’d make sure that the sides are flat. You don’t want to have it V-shaped. That direction, you can put your cement or your spray in that joint and it will have something to go against. You can’t just take hydraulic cement and lay it on the crack.

TOM: Right.

TOM SILVA: It will merely dry off and fell out of. It needs to be between two walls to work correctly.

TOM: Now, that’s a good point. And it’s somewhat counterintuitive because people that realize a hit don’t think the first thing they want to do is make it bigger.

LESLIE: Make it bigger.

TOM SILVA: Yeah. But that’s what you have to do. And you have to make it bigger and you have to make it flat on both sides.

TOM: So if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, what would you say is probably very good, most foolproof cloth to use?

TOM SILVA: If you’re going to do it yourself, you’re leading to chisel a groove, you’re going to make sure you have flat faces and you can use a hydraulic plaster if it has two skin-deeps to go against.

TOM: Now, good advice. And speaking of being a DIYer, what’s the biggest misconception you’ve control homeowners realize with organization repairs?

TOM SILVA: Caulking.

TOM: Yeah. Thinking caulking solves everything is, right?

TOM SILVA: Caulking will solve it all, yeah. Latex caulking. Now, silicone is the worst thing you can have because silicone doesn’t stick with a porous surface.

TOM: That’s huge advice. Tom Silva, the contractor from TV’s This Old House, thanks very much for stopping by The Money Pit.

TOM SILVA: Always a pleasure. Nice to be here, guys.

LESLIE: Alright. Catch the current season of This Old House and Ask This Old House on PBS. For local leanings and step-by-step videos of many common home improvement projects, visit ThisOldHouse.com.

TOM: And This Old House and Ask This Old House are brought to you on PBS by GMC Trucks and SUVs.

And time ahead, springtime emptying needles your mansion appearing enormou but just how clean is it really? We’ll have tips on where to find germs that are hiding in plain sight, after this.

Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Give us a announce, right now, with your home progress question at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: 888 -MONEY-PIT is presented by HomeAdvisor. You can find top-rated home service pros and bible appointments online, all for free.

TOM: Got the garden started this weekend, Leslie. You were talking about working outside. That’s what we did. We got the garden started.

LESLIE: Oh, my goodness. You can tell I’ve been working outside. I’m telling you, Tom, my allergies this season, I was not prepared for what time digging- I want I’m doing a lot of work in my ground. And to try to save some coin, I’m pulling out a lot of the shrubs and the landscaping myself.

TOM: A spate of substance? Yeah.

LESLIE: It’s a downright mess and I cannot stop coughing and sneezing. And this is why I definitely sounds like, you know- I’m not even sure what I sound like.

TOM: You made that.

Hey, have you been working outside? Taking on some home improvement projects, some yard campaigns like Leslie, who is digging her ground or me? I was planting a garden-variety. Tried to get those Jersey tomatoes seeded early so we have the big-hearted, juicy ones when the summer comes around.

LESLIE: Oh, for the- right in the middle of summer.

TOM: Oh, yeah. Exactly.

But whatever you’re working on, give us a call right now. We’d love to help you take on that job, 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Now, we’ve went Diane from Rhode Island on the line with a basement matter. What going on in here at your fund oppose?

DIANE: Hi. I have a house; it was built in 1945. And in my basement, the plaster walls- and it looks like once upon a time, they were painted white-hot. And the bottom half of the walls, who the hell is below the soil level, it crumbles and it leaves a lot of sediment. And I can see through the big happenings of pebbles in the wall.

TOM: So the reason that the bottom half of the wall is deteriorating is probably because of sweat. What are these walls made out of? Are they made out of concrete or concrete block or cinder block?

DIANE: Concrete. There’s no block.

TOM: There’s no obstruct; it’s concrete. Alright. So I reckon what’s happening here is you’re getting water that’s leaking through the lower half of the walls. And you’re probably get efflorescence. You is likely to be getting some spalling, depending on the temperatures, that could be causing some of the wall to freeze and then basically chip off fragments of the concrete.

So, what I would do, in such cases, is I would start by trying to reduce the amount of moisture that’s collecting in that wall by relating to the sewage requirements right outside of it. Generally speaking, this is caused by one of two things or more commonly, a combination of the angle of the grunge at the foundation perimeter. If it’s extremely flat, if it’s ascent into the house, if there’s any kind of landscaping ties or brick perimeters or more much mulch, any of those conditions that are holding water around the foundation is a bad situation. And more importantly, the trough structure. Make sure "youve had" sewers, that the sewers are diversified at the least 4 to 6 feet from the house. If you are able to deter that perimeter of your residence drier, this trouble will definitely stabilize.

DIANE: OK. Thank you very much.

TOM: Good luck. Thanks so much for announcing us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, outpouring cleaning can induce your room are so beautiful and it can actually filch your humor, extremely. But could your home still be dirtier than you think?

TOM: Well, it could be. The following is several arranges that most homeowners don’t think to clean. And if you ignore some of these smudges for too long, they can actually become health hazards.

For example, let’s talk about all those paddle supporters that we’re probably starting to use right now, especially on those warm eras. The top of the ceiling fan is not merely get dirty, it communicates dust and clay and germs flying every time you snap it on. So you want to get up on a ladder and clean the top of those blades with every seasonal cleaning.

LESLIE: Yeah. Now, another germ magnet- and this always grosses me out. Any time my minors are sick, I’m telling you I’ve got a good trick for this. I’m talking about stair banisters and doorknobs, as well as knobs on lockers and drawers. Now, these stuffs get soiled and super germy really fast.

And I’m telling you, when my children are sick, I make those bleach mops and I put one on each entrust and I merely march up and down the stairs and I touch all the cabinets. I only save swapping them out and I time erase every single surface, because those concepts certainly get so dirty so fast. You miss to avoid waiting until beings are sick. Precisely give them a immediate clean every week or two with that cleansing spraying or hot, soapy water.

And don’t forget about the top of your refrigerator. You know, kitchen grease, clay, grease, it gathers up there. And that can lead to germs, even fungus. You can see mold and mildew grow up there. So keep the top of your fridge clean-living. It’s especially important if you’re storing food up there. I know I do, so you must be.

TOM: And here’s something you may not be thinking about. You know those reusable, cloth grocery crates? They’re great for the environmental issues but they could be bad for your health if you don’t keep them clean. Think about it: they touch everything from shopping carts to raw fruit and meat and they do need a good soap after every give. So, toss them in the laundry. It’s terribly, highly simple to keep them clean-living and keep them from spreading germs around your house.

LESLIE: Terry in Mississippi is on the line looking for some help to get rid of termites. Tell us what’s going on.

TERRY: Yes. I’d like to know, what kind of spray should I get for termites?

TOM: Well, termite management is not a do-it-yourself project. Because termites really need to be professionally considered because of where they live. They live penetrating in the grunge, Terry. And so, to treat them effectively, a termiticide has to be applied to the soil and in a continual bail the whole way around your house.

And what happens with the modern termiticides is they’re undetectable, so the termites don’t know it’s in the grunge. They pass through it, they get it on their bodies and then they go back to the nest and pass it to all their termite pals. And that erases out the entire nest.

So, it’s not really a do-it-yourself project. I would talk to some exterminators and maybe ask precisely about a product announced Termidor- T-e-r-m-i-d-o-r. Good product. It’s been around for a long time. I exercised it in my own house and it’s an undetectable termiticide that’s very effective and lasts for many years.

LESLIE: Alright. Thanks so much for announcing The Money Pit.

Hey, gues you’ve got to repaint a room that was covered with the worst color combination possible. Well, we’re going to share the step-by-step to tackle that challenge, next.

TOM: Standing by for your asks, your questions about your home improvement projects, your remodeling assignments, your decor challenges. The digit is 1-888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor. You can find out what it cost to do your home project before you hire a pro and instantaneously work one of HomeAdvisor’s top-rated pros for free.

LESLIE: Don’t forget, while you’re online be sure to post any questions that you’ve got to The Money Pit’s Community page. Now, Terry in California corresponds: “I want to repaint an interior apartment. The existing shade is a vibrant purple and pink.”

TOM: Well, patently, we know why she wants to repaint it.

LESLIE: You know what? Everything 80 s coming in, so maybe if she waits a couple of weeks, it’ll be back again and she’ll want those colors.

But let’s see here. She wants to know the best way to prep the walls for the least amount of coatings to cover such colors colors.

TOM: Well, prep-wise, I mean you just want to make sure they’re clean. So I would use a TSP solution and soak everything down to get all the dirt and the grime and the grease and anything that’s on there off.

A little deception of the swap for that. You can use a storey swab- a brand-new flooring mop, by the way- and make sure you wring it out. Because sometimes, when you use them on the flooring, they’re pretty runny. But you were able to just wring it out a lot and use that to kind of wash the walls instead of "re going to have to" kind of use your limbs to get that sponge over every square hoof. A leech clean is a lot easier way to do that.

Now, in terms of those complexions, the secret is this: it’s in the primer, privilege? You’re going to want to prime those walls. And you want to make sure, if the finish is any color other than white, which is sort of the default color for primer, that "youve had" the colour storage colour the primer. So, if it’s yellow or fuchsia or- what’s the Pantone Color of the Time? That purple?

LESLIE: Wasn’t it like a blue-blooded denim?

TOM: Whatever color it is, hue the primer. Tint the primer because, assure, that gives you both the priming purpose which, of course, is to sort of give you a good surface for the upper mantles of decorate to stick to. That cover-up that. But if you colors it, it also covers all those colours underneath. So, ever retain, tint the primer when you have a challenge like that. It’ll have to be an alkyd-based or water-based primer, which is fine because they’re great today. Because most paint storages are not tinting oil-based produces anymore.

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, Josh is wondering: “At what temperature should I adjust my attic ability vent-hole love to keep my attic cool? I live in a red-hot, muggy environment where temperatures are often in the 90 s. And the ceiling get full show to the sun throughout the day, so it’s got to be a gajillion degrees up there.”

TOM: I gamble it is. But you know what? While those supremacy volcanoes, those attic followers that are motorized, seem like a good notion- they generally turn on between 90 to 110 grades, by the way. It’s the deep-seated. But they’re not the best choice for chill attics.

Here’s why. If you have central air conditioning, when that fan knocks on, it is often used to depressurize that attic gap. So it plucks all the air- the hot air out of the attic- good but it doesn’t stop there. It’s disappearing to contact down through all the crackings and crevices and the opening around wires and pipes and between walls and it’s going to start sucking the breeze conditioning out of your room at the same time. So it can actually drive up your cool costs, which is what you’re trying to avoid in the first place.

So a better option is what’s called a “continuous ridge and soffit vent.” It’s a vent-hole that goes down the peak of the ceiling and at the undersides of the soffits so that when warm breeze blows over the chamber of representatives, it inclines to draw out of the attic at the bank and it’ll push in at the soffit and carry up all that heat and moisture and humidity out with it. So it’s a considerably better system for hindering a cool attic than that powered attic ventilator.

LESLIE: Yeah. And you know, it’s good for call year-round because if you have insulation in your attic, which you are able to, and in the heating season it’ll keep the moisture outside of the separation. And it’ll actually help keep your residence warmer.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. We hope we’ve given you some tips-off and themes on how you could enjoy the season and take over the projects that you’d like to get done around your home. Remember, you can reach us, 24/7, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. If we’re not in the studio, we’ll call you back the next time we are. Or you can post your question to the Community page at MoneyPit.com.

But for now, that’s all the time we have. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself ...

LESLIE: But you don’t was therefore necessary to get it on alone.

END HOUR 1 TEXT

( Copyright 2019 Squeaky Door Product, Inc. No segment of this transcript or audio folder is also available reproduced in any format without the express written authorization of Squeaky Door Creation, Inc .)

Related Posts

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: We’re here to help you with your home improvement projects. Help yourself first by reaching out and calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. It does not matter when you are hearing the show; those lines are always answered. And if we’re not in the studio, we’ll call you back the next time we are. You can also post your home improvement question to The Money Pit’s Community page at MoneyPit.com.

Coming up on today’s show, going green can help you save energy. You know that, right? But listen to this: a new survey shows it can also bring you more green when it comes time to sell. We’ll share those eco-friendly features, just ahead.

LESLIE: And there’s an old saying that good fences make great neighbors. That is if you can get the fence built. We’re going to have some tips to make that project a lot easier.

TOM: And if your family is like most, you depend on the garage as sort of your real front door, right? That’s the main way you go in and out of the house. But if your door is old and worn, it can not only be unsafe, it also might be providing easy access for intruders, especially when you’re away. We’re going to have tips on what to look for in a new garage door when you hire a pro to get that job done, in today’s Pro Project, just ahead.

TOM: That’s going out to one caller drawn at random. Why not make it you?

LESLIE: Hey, give us a call. You’ve got to be in it to win it and those Arrow tools are fantastic. But you’ve got to be working on something or thinking about working on something so we can give you a hand.

TOM: The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Let’s get to it. Leslie, who’s first?

LESLIE: Hi, Fred. Welcome to The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

FRED: I have a standard toilet. It’s the type where the tank hangs on the wall and then you have an L and then you have, I guess – what do you call that? The bowl?

And it started to leak and so the old metal was pretty corroded and everything. So we took everything out. We took the tank off the wall, we – I say we, that I, the plumber who I’ve been using for many years cleaned everything up. Went to the hardware store that handles these kind of fittings and we just cannot get this thing to work. It leaks …

TOM: Where does it leak? Does it leak at the – where at – the base of the tank where the pipe connects?

FRED: In both, yeah. Well, one time we did it, it leaked at the bottom of the tank. The other time, it leaked when it went into the bowl.

TOM: What kind of a washer are you using? What kind of a gasket or seal are you using in those two places?

FRED: Well, I don’t know the technical names of it. The guy at the – they look like the same stuff we took off. I’m a musician; I don’t know all these things.

TOM: Well, this shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish and it sounds like whatever they’re using in that gasket space right there is not working. And look, if all else fails, you can simply use silicone here. You could apply the silicone in – as you put this together, you could – you seal all of those joints with silicone. Let it dry. Try not to touch it until it dries. And then you can take a razor blade and cut off the excess, nice and neat, and essentially make your own gasket.

FRED: Yeah, the plumber mentioned something. He said the only thing is if that thing fails and I’m not home, I’m going to have a house full of water.

TOM: That’s true. But the thing is, if it – once it works, it usually works, you know, continuously. It’s not – it doesn’t usually fail. If you get it right, it’s not going to fail, OK?

FRED: Yes. So, in other words, unless I can see some chips or damage on the porcelain or something like that, which I don’t see, it should work.

TOM: But I would take it apart and I would seal, with silicone, each connection as it goes together so that you end up with a good compression of silicone around that. That’s the solution, OK?

Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Pat in Arkansas is dealing with a humid house. What’s going on there?

PAT: Well, I have a new heat pump and it’s not taking out the humidity. Of course, I live in a humid area but I just wondered. It’s supposed to take out the humidity, as I understood.

TOM: Well, not really. I mean air conditioners, in general – central air conditioners, which is essentially what a heat pump is – are not designed to be dehumidifiers. They do dehumidify by virtue of the fact that they’re cooling the air but they’re not as effective as other forms of dehumidifiers.

There’s a couple of other ones that you could consider, one of which is called a “whole-home dehumidifier.” And that’s built into the HVAC system. It would be built into the duct system. And that can take out about 90 pints of water a day.

There’s another type of stand-alone dehumidifier. In fact, I just put one of these in my own house and I thought it was absolutely terrific. It’s by Santa Fe and it’s a small dehumidifier that installs – in my case, I put it in my basement. And it actually is suspended from the ceiling, in an unfinished part of the basement. And it’s only 12x12x22.

And it takes out 70 pints of water a day. And it’s really neat. Once I had it up for an hour or so, I went down there and you can just see this pretty strong stream of water dripping out of it. And all that water used to be in the air and now it’s no longer there.

So, you need to do some dehumidification and I think that you’ll find that that will do the trick, Pat.

PAT: OK. What is the average humidity supposed to be in a house?

LESLIE: Thirty to fifty percent?

TOM: Well, yeah, I was going to say around 40. So we’re in the same neighbor.

PAT: OK.

TOM: And if you put a good dehumidifier in, that will be set up to a humidistat so that you’ll always know what the humidity is.

LESLIE: And it’ll come on as it’s needed.

TOM: Right, exactly.

PAT: OK. Alrighty. Well, I thank you so much.

TOM: Good luck, Pat. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Give us a call, right now, at 1-888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor, where you can find top-rated service pros, compare prices and book appointments online, all for free. The number, again, is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Alright. And still ahead, how to make some extra green by making your house more eco-friendly. It’s an investment that’s sure to pay off when you sell.

TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Pick up the phone, give us a call right now. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor, the fast and easy way to find the right pro for any kind of home project, whether it’s a small repair or a major remodel.

LESLIE: And hey, give us a call, right now, at 888-MONEY-PIT or reach out online in the Community section, because we’ve got a great prize up for grabs. We’re giving away the iconic, American-made Arrow T50 Heavy-Duty Staple Gun and a supply of staples.

Now, it’s the most popular American-made staple gun ever. And there are so many things that you can do with that Arrow T50 Staple Gun. You can upholster a chair, you can make a headboard, you can do repairs around the house, so many awesome things.

TOM: Yeah. And speaking of awesome things, here’s a project, Leslie, that I know that you have done many, many times and that is upholster a chair, right? That’s a really easy DIY starter project for home improvers that want to step up their décor.

And Arrow Fastener has all of the steps outlined, waiting for you, at ArrowFastener.com. Just click on Projects. You’ll find step-by-step tips and advice to get that project done. Just go to ArrowFastener.com and click on Projects.

And hey, if you’re lucky, you might also just win that $35 stapler, plus the staples, for a total package of 50 bucks. Going out to one caller drawn at random. The number, again, is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Jim in Oregon is on the line with a driveway question. How can we help you today?

JIM: It’s a brand-new home. I lived in it less than about three months. A strange odor started coming through in the master bedroom that can’t be detected. We had plumbers come in to check the sewage system. They did a smoke test on it. Couldn’t find that. We just don’t know what the problem is. It’s really an odd odor.

TOM: How would you describe the odor?

JIM: It’s a cross between garbage and sewage smell.

TOM: Has anyone ever suggested biogas as the source of this?

JIM: No one ever suggested that.

TOM: Alright. So, this is a – I’m speculating here, alright? Now, I realize that they’ve done all these tests and so on but sometimes, you get bacteria that deteriorates in the traps of sinks and toilets. And it can release a biogas, which has an absolutely terrible, terrible smell.

One way to deal with that is to get a concentrated – like an oxygenated bleach solution mixed up and – like OxiClean or something like that. And then take a bottle brush and try to get that solution into the drain. Make sure you’re really scrubbing all the nooks and crannies of that drain and let it sit there for a bit. And if there’s any bacteria that’s forming there that could be contributing to this odor, that will eliminate it. So that’s one idea.

The second potential cause for this is simply a dead rodent. We’ve seen in the past where the rodents get into the spaces in and under or in the wall or something like that. And then they decompose and you get that kind of odor. So I don’t have a lot of solutions for you on that but I would try the biogas solution first.

And make sure you also get the overflow of the kitchen, of the – sorry – of the bathroom sink. That overflow channel? By letting the water run up, it’ll block the drain until it hits the overflow? Because if you have any of that bacteria in the overflow channel, that can contribute to it, as well.

JIM: OK. Did you ever find this in a new home before?

TOM: Yeah, I mean it can happen pretty quickly.

JIM: Oh, really? Hmm.

TOM: Even though it’s a new home, it’s been under construction for some period of time and so, it could have preexisted.

JIM: Well, I’ll definitely give it all a try.

TOM: Give it a shot.

LESLIE: Well, more and more home buyers are looking at green features when they’re choosing new homes. And that’s according to the National Association of Home Builders. But how does this trend carry over for those of you who already own or are looking to buy existing homes?

TOM: Well, it does carry over because you can easily add value to your home while using environmentally-friendly products and materials. For example, if you’re going to do a paint project, you want to choose paints that are labeled as containing low-VOCs or volatile organic compounds. These paints are not going to give off gas or produce noxious smells. And also, you can choose appliances that are extra efficient by always looking for the ENERGY STAR label.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm. Now, those are good tips. But you can also use natural, enduring materials such as stone, quarry tile and brick instead of the less durable synthetic materials. You should use eco-friendly light bulbs and install occupancy sensors that turn lights off and on automatically. Change out those older fixtures for WaterSense-certified plumbing fixtures. I promise you will not sacrifice pressure there at all, just savings.

TOM: Yeah. And also, think about using renewable resources like bamboo flooring. I love bamboo flooring. It’s so affordable and it’s really strong, it’s really durable. And because it’s a native plant, it really is going to last a very long time and be very easy to regrow. So, it gives you a good flooring and it’s easy to replenish and it’s very green.

And apparently, all these features added together will add up to some real value to your home when it comes time to sell, according to the experts at NAHB.

LESLIE: Judy in Missouri is on the line with a roofing question. How can we help you today?

JUDY: Yes, I was wondering if you had ever heard of – had a roof repair a few years ago and it’s been leaking ever since. They used what they called Tam-Shield. It’s a synthetic underlayment.

The reason that your roof is leaking now is probably not because of the Tam-Shield; it’s probably because of something that went wrong with the repair. But I don’t think it would have been the underlayment, because that’s actually pretty good stuff.

How is it leaking, Judy? Tell me about the leak.

JUDY: Well, we really don’t know. It comes through in our bathroom and we get up in the attic and we can see drips. But they can’t seem to pinpoint it. They worked on it several times and they just can’t get it to go away.

TOM: Alright. Usually, if your roof is leaking above your bathroom – there’s a pipe that goes through the ceiling right there and up through the roof and it’s the plumbing-vent pipe. And right around that vent pipe, there’s like a rubber boot that seals that pipe between the pipe and the roof itself. And then there’s flashing that goes around that. That’s the most common place for a roof leak when you have it leak right above a bathroom.

Now, a lot of times, contractors will try to sort of tar that in place but that’s a bad idea. What I would recommend is to take out the plumbing-vent flashing. And you can do that easily by removing a few shingles in that area.

Roof shingles are actually pretty easy to disassemble if you know kind of a trick of the trade. I like to do it with a flat bar that you can slip up under the roof shingle, find the nail and sort of pry it from side to side and it’ll pop right out. And then you replace that plumbing-vent flashing and put it back together again and make sure you put everything in the right order so it – the roofing lays on top of the flashing. That usually stops that leak.

JUDY: But you – but leave the vent pipes there?

TOM: Oh, yeah. The vent pipe is there for an important reason. You’re going to start having problems flushing your toilet and all your sinks are going to start to gurgle if you take that out. But replace the plumbing-vent flashing there, OK?

JUDY: OK. Well, thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Judy. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Brian, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

BRIAN: I’ve got a problem with our septic system. And our septic system zigzags back and forth in the backyard. And then where the end of it is, there’s a sinkhole developing.

TOM: How old is this septic system? Has it ever been inspected or cleaned?

BRIAN: We’ve cleaned it twice. It’s just my wife and I. This thing, I noticed, started developing kind of right after we moved into the house. Our house is about 20 years old.

TOM: Because I wonder if – if you say this is towards the end of the distribution field, I wonder if the field is not absorbing water like it should – absorbing the effluent as it should. And most of it is sort of running towards the end of the pipe like it’s a long drain. And as a result, it’s causing erosion in that area.

I think that probably the first thing I would do is have a septic inspection done with an examination of the field to check the percolation of it. Because if it’s not percolating, if it’s not draining properly, you could be spilling a lot of effluent into the ground unknowingly without it having a chance to really soak properly back into the soil. I think what we’re hearing here is a potential failure of your septic field, more than a problem with a sinkhole. I suspect that this is erosion that you’re seeing.

BRIAN: OK. It’s not just a matter of dumping a bunch of dirt in there and covering that up.

TOM: No. That would fill it up again but I’m afraid it would probably wash out again. So, that’s kind of what I would lean to is having that field inspected and just getting a sense of – listen, you want to find out now. You don’t want this thing to fail at the least opportune time. And if you find out early, at least you can plan a replacement if you have to.

Brian, good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Michael in Rhode Island, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

MICHAEL: I moved into a place. There was a tenant here before my wife and I moved in. And there’s a garage – a detached garage. It’s probably about 10 square, maybe. That’s what the roofer said it was, I believe.

The roof isn’t in bad shape. It’s probably 10 to 12 years old. It’s still got a lot of gravel on it but there’s a tree at one end – a maple tree; a big, old one – and the branches were hanging over it. And now they’re – they’ve been cut back. But there was like ¾-inch of moss all over the very end of it, going about 4 feet in the whole rake of – the guy calls it “the rake”: a hole from the gutter to the ridge. And it was all moss.

And I got up there with a small – like a kid’s nylon snow shovel and scraped a little off. And I was very leery of doing that because I didn’t want to take the gravel off, because the rest of the roof is fine. And I really don’t have the money to invest in a roof. And I was wondering if there’s some kind of a chemical I could use that wouldn’t loosen the gravel, that would melt that off maybe.

LESLIE: Well, yeah. Actually, there’s a couple of products on the market. A good one that we use a lot is Spray & Forget. And it’s actually something that you’ll spray right on the moss or mildew or anything that’s organic and growing on the exterior: your siding, outdoor furnishings, your roof, for example. And you spray it on and you forget about it. And it truly will do the work. The more it rains outside, the more it sits in the sun, that will start to sort of eat away at the moss and the mildew and get rid of it.

And it does a good job of maintaining it over time, as well. Plus, you really don’t want to get up on the roof. I mean everything is so slippery when there’s moss and mildew up there. And you just don’t want to get hurt. So you can do this all from the ground.

TOM: Yeah, it’s a great product. SprayAndForget.com is their website. Now, it will take the green stains away from exterior surfaces in about one to three days. If you’ve got really thick roof stains, that could take a couple of months or more to get rid of it – of all of it. But it starts to work as soon as you apply it.

The other thing that you can do on that tree that you mentioned is try to cut it back a little bit. The more sunlight you can get on that roof makes it a lot harder for that moss to grow.

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah. The tree’s already been cut back, yeah. It was a safety issue besides an appearance issue just following on that. I just – but I (inaudible) shade but the thing is it was neglected for so many years. And as the water dripped, yes, the green of photosynthesis dripped down and it just stained it. And moss there was quite, quite thick. So what I did is I used a plastic ice scraper for our car and I got most of it off being very cautious, obviously. I had to be, you know, sitting on my rear end and my feet sideways in an old pair of sneakers.

TOM: Yeah, we don’t want you to get hurt.

MICHAEL: No, no, definitely don’t want that.

TOM: That moss can be very slippery, too. So it’s good that you got the most of it off but I want you to apply Spray & Forget. And I think you’ll be very happy with the result.

Thank you so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Give us a call at 888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor. Find top-rated home service pros, compare prices and book appointments online, all for free.

TOM: Up next, planning a fence project before weather turns cold? We’re going to have tips on a fast and easy way to get done what is usually the hardest part of that project: installing post. That and more, after this.

Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Standing by for your calls, your questions at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Kim in North Carolina, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

KIM: Well, we have trouble with weed. And it was never a trouble before. But it – we have had trouble finding what we used to have and want to know if it is outdated or no longer safe to use for the environment.

TOM: Oh, you mean your weed-killer?

KIM: Well, no. It’s not a weed-killer, because we try not to put anything down in the ground other than to kill the fire ants.

TOM: But your goal here is to eliminate weeds?

KIM: We used to use a black plastic. The black plastic would keep the weeds gone – just literally gone. And the plants would actually flourish from the root system being gently baked, we use the term. But now, all you can find is that sand fiber stuff almost.

TOM: Well, listen, if it’s worked for you in the past, I don’t see why it won’t work for you in the future. It certainly is available and it’s safe. And you’re talking about weed block. That’s a different material entirely. And weed block is basically designed to cover the whole surface or to be just below the surface. It will work, as well. But generally, with weed block, you put slits in it and that’s how the plants grow through it. They don’t grow under it.

Now, if you’re talking about a lawn, there are other ways to deal with a massive influx of weeds. If your lawn is in really bad condition and completely full with weeds, then I would recommend a kind of radical step called a “Round-Up restoration,” where you essentially spray the entire lawn with a Round-Up product in the fall, by the way. In the fall. You spray the entire lawn. And then as that lawn starts to die out, you put seed on it. And the seed comes up through the original dead lawn. And then by next spring, you’ll have a beautiful, new, green lawn without a lick of weeds in the whole place.

So there’s a couple of ways to approach it but either way, I think, is fine. If you can identify the plastic and use it again, I see nothing wrong with doing that. If you want to use the weed block, that’s fine. But you have to have cuts in it for the plants to come on. Or if you just want to restore the entire lawn, then go with the Round-Up restoration.

Kim, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

You know, it used to be that working with concrete for small projects like, say, setting a fence post was a real hassle. You had to buy all the raw materials. You had to mix them up probably using tools like your garden wheelbarrow and garden hoe. Then you had to clean them off before that concrete became permanently attached to the tools. It was a real mess.

LESLIE: Well, QUIKRETE has made that a lot easier with their Fast-Setting Concrete in the red bag. Now, it’s a special blend of fast-setting cements, sand and gravel that’s designed to set in approximately 20 to 40 minutes.

TOM: You can use it for setting a fence post, mailbox, deck footings or even for pouring a slab. And for those posts, you don’t even have to premix it. For fence posts, just pour the dry mix into the hole, add water and the post will be solid in 20 minutes.

LESLIE: QUIKRETE is available at home improvement retailers nationwide for about $5 a bag.

TOM: Look for it in the red bag or learn more at QUIKRETE.com.

LESLIE: Michelle in Minnesota is on the line with a bathroom-floor “thing” is all I can call it. What is going on? You’re getting moisture coming up through the floor?

MICHELLE: Yes. It’s a laminate floor. This is my third summer in this house and it’s the first time that I’ve had this issue. And it was – it started around the warm and humid days. At first, I thought maybe that it was my toilet leaking, because I had a new toilet put in last summer. But the plumber did come out and pull the toilet and it didn’t look like it was leaking or that the seal was broken on it. So we’re thinking that it’s condensation from the concrete slab coming up between the slats of the laminate flooring.

TOM: So the laminate flooring is on top of a concrete slab?

MICHELLE: Correct, yep.

TOM: What’s this looking – what’s this doing to the floor? Is it causing it to deform in any way? Or is it just showing up as a stain?

MICHELLE: It is not buckling or anything along the edges. He thinks that maybe it’s a rubber flooring – more of a rubber-based flooring – rather than a wood. And so it has not curled edges or anything like that. It just seeps up as moisture and it comes – like beads up right along the edges of the laminate.

TOM: Do you have air conditioning in this bathroom?

MICHELLE: I do not. Nope.

TOM: Yeah, I was thinking cooler, moist air against a warmer floor could cause additional condensation.

So look, if you want to reduce the moisture that’s coming up through the bathroom, there’s a couple of things I can suggest. First of all, you want to take a look at the grading and the drainage conditions outside that bathroom. Because the slab, if it’s getting very wet, is extremely hydroscopic. So all the moisture in the earth will be drawn into the slab and that’s going to wick up and show up in your bathroom, apparently.

So, take a look at your gutters and downspouts. Make sure they’re clean and free-flowing and the spouts are extending 4 to 6 feet from the house. Get all that roof water away and then take a look at the angle of the soil and make sure that that’s sloping away.

Now, do you have a fan in this bathroom?

MICHELLE: Yes.

TOM: That is helpful. You might want to think about replacing the fan with one that has a built-in humidistat, because that’s convenient in a couple of fronts. First of all, when you take a shower and you leave the bathroom and turn the switch off, it’ll actually stay on until all the moisture’s properly vented out of there. And if it does get humid on its own, then the humidistat will kick the fan on and also dry it out. They’re not terribly expensive; I know Broan makes a good one. There are a number of manufacturers you can find this from.

And keep an eye on the floor. Some laminate floors stand up very well to moisture. I’ve seen laminate floors that can be submerged and they don’t seem to be affected by it. But others will buckle just like hardwood would. So just keep an eye on it. And if it ends up that it does have to be replaced, I would paint that cement slab underneath with a couple of coats of epoxy paint to kind of seal in and stop the moisture from evaporating through and into the room.

MICHELLE: Mm-hmm. OK.

TOM: But only if you get that far. I wouldn’t tell you to tear up the floor now. But if you have to replace it, just make sure you seal the slab at the same time.

MICHELLE: Mm-hmm. Yeah, OK. Thank you. That’s good, thanks.

TOM: Alright. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Well, if your family is like most, you depend on the garage as the real front door to your house for reliable access, as well as protection. But if your door is old and worn, it could not only be unsafe, it could be providing easy access for intruders when you’re away.

TOM: We’ve got tips on what to look for in a new garage door when you hire a pro to get that project done, in today’s Pro Project presented by HomeAdvisor.com, just ahead.

Where home solutions live, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we are here to help you get your projects done around the house and give you some of the tools to do just that. This hour, we’re giving away the iconic, American-made Arrow T50 Heavy-Duty Staple Gun and a supply of staples.

If you’ve got to have one tool in your house, I tell you what, this might be the one because it is the most popular, American-made staple gun ever. And it can really help you do all sorts of things around the house. It’s got all chrome-steel housing. It’s got a jam-resistant mechanism. It’s got a very powerful coil spring. It’s got a staple-viewing window and all steel working parts.

And there are a lot of things you can get done with the Arrow T50 Staple Gun, including upholstering a chair, which is their Project of the Month at ArrowFastener.com. If you have, say, a dining-room chair or a kitchen chair with an upholstered seat and you want to make that go away and refresh it with something beautiful, you can do that project yourself. In fact, all of the steps and the tips and the advice, everything you need to get the project done is online, right now, at ArrowFastener.com. Just click on Projects.

And hey, if you call in your home improvement question, you might even win an Arrow T50 to work on that project with. That $35 stapler, plus 15 bucks in staples, going out to one lucky caller drawn at random. Make that you. The number, again, is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, if your family is like ours, you depend on the garage door as your real front door for reliable access, as well as protection. But if your door is old and worn, it could not only be unsafe, it could be providing easy access for intruders when you’re away. We’ve got some tips now on what to look for in a new garage door when you hire a pro to get it done, in today’s Pro Project presented by HomeAdvisor.com.

LESLIE: First, the garage-door designs today are amazing. It used to be that you had to choose from heavy, wood doors that needed a lot of upkeep, to metal doors that were cold and prone to rust. Well, today, there’s a wide variety of composite and fiberglass doors available that look amazingly like wood but need virtually no care at all. Plus, the doors are better insulated and can keep those drafts out of your garage, which is especially nice if you like to use the space to work in.

TOM: Yes. But in addition to better doors, we also now have much better door openers. I mean today’s garage-door openers are fully integrated into smart-home technology. That enables you to open and close them from your smartphone and from virtually anywhere. I like this feature, too: they can even trigger an alert if you left home and left your door open.

Now, the openers themselves are also safer than what they were years ago, with improved auto-reverse mechanisms that prevent injury, as well as battery backups that can be super handy in the event of a power failure. All of these improvements make now a really great time to update your garage door and your garage-door opener.

LESLIE: And that’s today’s Pro Project presented by HomeAdvisor.com. With HomeAdvisor, you can get matched with top-rated home service pros in your area and compare prices, read verified reviews and book appointments online, all for free.

TOM: No matter the type of job, HomeAdvisor makes it fast and easy to hire the best local pros.

LESLIE: Jim in Pennsylvania, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?

JIM: Yes. I have hard water in my house and every – I don’t know – year, about, I have to clean out my water heater to get the calcium deposits out. So, my question is: first of all, is there a better tool than a shop vac with a piece of copper tubing taped to it to get into the – you know, I take the bottom element out and I shove that in there and try to clean that calcium out. Is there a way to liquefy that so that I could wash it out? Or is there a water heater on the market that provides access to that?

TOM: So, how much calcium do you actually think you’re getting out of this when you open it up?

JIM: Oh, my. It gets to the point where it’s almost to the bottom element.

TOM: I wonder if you could put a filtration system in before the water heater that will take some of that away.

Yeah, the problem with calcium is not so much that it shortens the life of the water heater, it just acts as an insulator. And so, if you have it – I’m sorry, you have a gas – do you have electric water heater?

JIM: It’s electric, yeah.

TOM: Yeah. So it’s probably not even affecting your efficiency much because it’s just taking up room.

See, if you have a gas water heater and the flame is underneath it, then it acts as an insulator and the gas has to run longer to heat the water up. But because you have an electric water heater, where the elements are embedded up higher in the unit, I don’t think it has any effect on the efficiency.

JIM: Well, how I found out about this was the element went bad.

TOM: Yeah.

JIM: The bottom element. And I took it out to replace it and I could hardly get it out; it was actually above the element, at that point, the first time.

TOM: Yeah. You know why? Because it probably – that might have shortened the life of the element, because it basically held the heat into it, didn’t allow it to cool like it normally does. So I could definitely see it shortening the life of it.

Do you have any other type of filtration system on the well?

JIM: Just an in-line filter that we put on. We had the water tested and an ultraviolet light and an in-line filter is all we have.

TOM: There is an electronic device called EasyWater that basically will help suspend those water particles – those mineral salts – in the water and kind of let it flush right through, as opposed to collecting.

JIM: OK.

TOM: And I like it because it’s no salt involved. It basically doesn’t add to the salinity of the water. It does it electronically. It’s at EasyWater.com.

Take a look at it. They also have an extraordinarily good warranty. If you install it and you don’t like it, they’ll send you your money back.

JIM: Alright. Great. Thank you very much.

LESLIE: Alright. Thanks so much for calling The Money Pit at 888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor.

Find out what it costs to do your home project before you hire a pro and instantly book one of HomeAdvisor’s top-rated pros for free.

TOM: Up next, if your trips up and down stairs to do laundry are getting to be a drag, we’ve got ideas to help you bring your laundry to you. It’s all coming up, next.

Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Standing by for your calls and your questions at 888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor. They have the best local pros for any home service.

LESLIE: That’s right. Doesn’t matter what the project is, they make it fast and easy to find top-rated pros.

TOM: And there are no membership fees. It’s 100-percent free to use. HomeAdvisor.com.

LESLIE: Alright. And while you’re online, guys, post your questions in the Community section at MoneyPit.com or give us a call. We’re always standing by to lend you a hand.

Now, jumping into our posts, we’ve got one from Louis in Florida who writes: “How long should a garage-door opener last? Our seems to be working intermittently lately, especially the remote units in our cars. We tried changing the batteries. Now, the unit itself is about 12 years old.”

TOM: That’s an antique in garage door-opener years.

LESLIE: True.

TOM: Yeah. That’s really old. And it’s old for two reasons.

First of all, it’s old for a piece of – any piece of mechanical equipment. But secondly, it’s old because the standards have changed and the function has changed over the last decade-plus. So, I think this is a really good opportunity for you to think about replacing that garage-door opener itself. That’s a project you could find a pro for at HomeAdvisor.com.

A couple of things that you will benefit from. The technology has improved, so you’ll have the benefit of wireless access to that door. I love the feature that when you leave home and leave the door open, that can give you a push alert on your phone. I mean most of these openers have that kind of technology today. Plus, it’s just a safer, more secure product. And it’s harder to break into for criminals, as well. Because a lot of the old door openers were pretty easy to get into but the code is much more sophisticated now.

So, all great reasons for you to replace that door opener. Its time has come.

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, we’ve got a post here from Jim in Alabama who writes: “I took your advice and got a programmable thermostat. I’ve already noticed big savings. Now, no one is home during the day and I set it to get pretty hot. My question is: how hot is too hot? We have serious heat and humidity here in Southern Alabama. Can I let my house heat up to 85 or 87 without causing damage?”

TOM: Only damage to your electric bill. Look, if you let everything in the house get that hot, it’s going to take a lot more energy to cool it down. So I wouldn’t go quite that high. I might try to keep this at around 78 or 80 max. If you let the house get practically the same temperature as the outside, it’s going to take hours for it to cool down again. It’s going to waste more energy and cost you a lot more money than you could possibly save by, essentially, turning it off while you’re not home.

LESLIE: Yeah. And keeping it in the high 70s really is enough, I promise.

TOM: Well, if you’re constantly navigating a narrow stair with a laundry basket in your arm, it might be time to bring that laundry room to you. Leslie tells us how to do just that, in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.

Leslie?

LESLIE: Yeah. You know, more new homes have washers and dryers in hallways, kitchens and bathrooms. But if yours is stuck in the basement or at least on the floor other than the bedrooms, don’t worry. It’s never been easier to move your laundry room upstairs.

For example, a stack washer and dryer is small enough to fit into a closet. Another type of combo unit washes and dries clothes without any help from you. Now, this unit looks just like a normal washing machine but you won’t have to move wet clothes from the washer to the dryer, because the washer is the dryer. So it saves a ton of space.

I remember a long time ago, my family – we all went on a vacation to London. And instead of going to a hotel, we rented an apartment. And in the kitchen, they had one of those combo units under the counter. It was amazing. It was on the smaller side but you just set it, forget it, walked away and your laundry was done.

So, guys, bring that laundry room to you, instead of you having to go to the laundry room, and cleaning your clothes will be less of a chore.

TOM: This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show where we try to help you with all the chores around your house, at least those having to do with home improvement, remodeling and décor. And coming up next time on the program, just like choosing the best lumber for a project, there are a wide variety of grades of vinyl fence. If that’s a job you’d like to get done, we’ll tell you which ones will really stand up to the test of time.

I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …

LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

END HOUR 2 TEXT

(Copyright 2018 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.)

Related product

TOM: Coast to coast and floorboards to shingles, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we are here to help you with your home improvement projects. We’re here to educate, to help you get confidence in taking these projects on. If you need a coach, we’re sort of your home improvement coach. Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or someone who wants to hire out the job, we are here to guide you, give you tips, advice, confidence, inspiration to avoid the perspiration when you take on those projects around your house. Now, your job is to help yourself first by picking up the phone or reaching out to us on our Community page at MoneyPit.com or calling 1-888-MONEY-PIT with your home improvement question.

Coming up on today’s show, if you’ve been thinking about a remodeling project and wondering what to do with your ceiling, I will bet there’s one ceiling that you are definitely not considering: a drop ceiling, right?

LESLIE: Oh, yeah. For sure. I get it. They look old, they’re dated. Well, you might want to give drop ceilings a second look because those that are coming out today can be absolutely stunning. In fact, it’s even hard to tell that they are drop ceilings. We’re going to share some details on that, in just a bit.

TOM: Plus, do you spend more time picking out paint for a project than you do actually picking out the paintbrush you’ll use? We’re going to share tips on how to choose a brush that won’t leave marks, waste paint or have bristles that break off and get stuck in the wet paint. I hate when that happens.

LESLIE: That’s really the worst. That’s like you get a whole project done and then you’re picking at the one loose bristle.

TOM: Really.

LESLIE: Alright. It’s time for fireplace season again. And if you are lighting your fireplace for the first time, it might make you feel a little nervous and that’s for good reason. You know, dirty chimneys can send your relaxation up in smoke. We’re going to tell you how to make sure that your fireplace is ready to fire up for the season ahead.

TOM: Plus, we’ve got a great giveaway this hour. We’ve got a product that Leslie had – both protects your home and entertains you both at the same time.

LESLIE: Ah, those are two pretty good things.

TOM: It will protect you at the same time; we just hope it doesn’t alarm you at the same time. Because we’re talking about the Onelink Safe & Sound by First Alert. It’s a detector that will notify you, on your cell phone, in the event of a smoke or carbon-monoxide emergency. Plus, it’s got a premium speaker that plays music. It even answers voice commands because it’s got built-in Alexa. Really interesting combination of smart-home technology.

We’ve got one to give away from First Alert worth almost 250 bucks. Going out to one caller drawn at random. Does that sound like a great prize? Well, help yourself first: pick up the phone, call us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT. We will toss your name in The Money Pit hard hat and you might just be winning that great, new product from First Alert: the Onelink Safe & Sound worth almost 250 bucks.

LESLIE: Mike in Iowa is on the line with an insulation question. What can we do for you today?

MIKE: I’m looking to put some fiberglass insulation up in my attic. I have access to some 6-inch that’s faced on one side and it has foil on the other. Could I lay that down in my attic without having any problems?

TOM: You already have existing insulation there, right, Mike?

MIKE: Yeah, I’ve got 10 inches in my ceilings.

TOM: The answer is no and here’s why: the foil face is a vapor barrier and if you put a vapor barrier in there, you’re going to trap moisture. Now, a very common scenario is people put that up in the attic, they leave the vapor barrier facing up but that’s actually wrong. The only place a vapor barrier belongs is against the heated space, which would be under the 10 inches of insulation you already have there.

So, the foil face is not a good thing. Now, I will say that you – if you really want to be frugal about this, you could probably pull that foil off and lay the unfaced batt perpendicular to what you have right now. It’ll be a bit of a messy job, because it sounds like it’s older insulation, so you’re going to have to protect yourself with dust masks and safety glasses, long sleeves and all of that.

MIKE: I don’t care to do that. But right now, in my attic, at one time I had a flat roof. And right now, I’ve got rolled tar – or not tar paper but rolled shingling up in my attic floor. That’s probably acting as a vapor barrier, I would guess, today.

TOM: It probably is, yeah. Because it would stop humidity from getting through it. The problem is that it traps it in the insulation and when it does that, the insulation doesn’t work well. Insulation that’s damp does not insulate, so that humidity is working against you.

MIKE: I have wood heat and it takes a lot of moisture out of the house. That’s probably in my favor, I would guess.

TOM: I would think so. Now, you want to preserve that wood floor? You want to use all of that wood floor space?

MIKE: I’d like to use as much as possible, yes.

TOM: Well, why don’t you do this? Kind of a way to kind of have your cake and eat it, too, is to carve out an area in the center of the attic that you reserve, basically, just for storage. And then you add unfaced fiberglass batts on top of the wood floor to the other areas. Yeah, it’s not perfect having that whatever floor covering you have in between but I still think it’s going to add some insulation to that space and help cut some of your energy bills. And unfaced fiberglass batts are not that expensive and pretty easy to handle.

MIKE: OK.

TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Natasha in Missouri is on the line with a molding question. What can we do for you today?

NATASHA: Our house is about 11 years old and the interior walls – the sheetrock or the drywall – is finished with a nice, round, bullnose corner. So it doesn’t come to a right angle, so to speak. And just through wear and tear with kids and dogs, we have found several dents appearing. And I’m wondering if you have ideas on how we might repair that or if we are going to have to just replace that whole corner edging. Any thoughts?

TOM: Yeah. I mean is this like the metal rounded corner?

NATASHA: I think it’s metal. I tap on it and it sounds plasticky but it might be metal, which would explain the dents.

TOM: Why not just plaster over those?

NATASHA: I thought about that. Some of them are just little dimples but I don’t know if I can successfully fill and sand and patch. But that’s one thought we’ve had.

TOM: Yeah. You could skim-coat it. And the other thing that you could do, if it’s a crisp dent, is you can use auto-body filler. We use that on metal doors, like metal doors that have dents in it and that sort of thing. It’s just a little harder to sand. But if it’s just the outside corner on drywall, you could use spackle for that. Build it up and then sand it. It sands really easily. You’re just going to have to prime it and repaint it.

NATASHA: Yeah?

TOM: Shouldn’t be a big deal.

NATASHA: Great. Well, that’s exciting. Some other advice I’d had was to replace the whole corner, so I love your suggestion much, much more.

TOM: Well, you can always do that but why don’t we try the easy stuff first?

NATASHA: Maybe in the bedrooms where it’s not so obvious. We’ll try that first, so …

TOM: You’re welcome, Natasha. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: You are tuned to The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show on air and online at MoneyPit.com. Call in your home repair or home improvement question 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

888-MONEY-PIT is presented by HomeAdvisor. You can find top-rated home service pros and book appointments online, all for free.

TOM: And just ahead, do you think drop ceilings look old and dated? Well, you might want to give them a second look because those coming out today can be absolutely stunning. We’ll share the new options, after this.

Where home solutions live, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: And we try to make good homes better. Give us a call, right now, with your home improvement project at 1-888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor, the fast and easy way to find the right pro for any kind of home project, whether it’s a small repair or a major remodel.

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, we’ve got Rudy in Tennessee joining us here at The Money Pit who had a leaky roof and now you’re trying to fix up all the remaining issues. Tell us what happened.

RUDY: So, we had a big rainstorm. And just got a call from my wife and I came in and looked at it and I had a bunch of water running down the seam of my drywall, into the – onto the landing inside my house. Then I called a handyman. He came and took down the drywall and wait, he noticed that it was kind of leaky. The roof was leaking and then it came in on the drywall.

I had a roofer come out, licensed. He came, he repaired the roof and also put some water guards to kind of channel the water away. And then the handy-guy put up the drywall and taped it, painted it over. And so then, probably about a month later, all that drywall – the new drywall – kind of buckled, kind of came out.

And there’s no more water. It’s rained here multiple times since then. I haven’t seen any more water come in but I didn’t know if it was moisture still in the wall or if it was just bulky drywall that the person put up.

TOM: Well, it’s not – is no such thing as bad drywall. There are bad drywall contractors but no such thing as bad drywall. And when you say buckle, is it swollen or is it sort of popped off the wall?

RUDY: It popped off the wall. Like you can push a little bit on it and you can see the exact place where the patched drywall was. You can look at the seam and it’s kind of uneven.

TOM: OK. So, if it sort of popped off the wall, then I suspect that it just wasn’t adhered properly and it might just need to be re-secured. You might need a few extra drywall screws or nails in that.

If it’s swollen and starting to look like it’s wet or damp or stained or moldy then, of course, the roof leak could be continuing. But if it’s just loose and came off the wall, then it might, in fact, be that it wasn’t attached very well and normal expansion and contraction of that area has forced it to sort of release. So I would go back to the contractor and ask if he can re-secure it and retape it, re-spackle it.

RUDY: Perfect. Thank you, guys. Enjoy listening to your show.

TOM: Well, thanks so much for calling, Rudy. We appreciate it.

LESLIE: Hey, the holidays are ahead and we want to make sure that your house is both safe and ready for entertaining. Well, we’ve got a product that can do both. We’re giving away, this hour, the very cool Onelink Safe & Sound by First Alert.

Now, this is an alarm system and sort of an entertainment system, if you could, that’s worth 250 bucks. Now, the Onelink Safe & Sound, it’s a smoke, fire and carbon-monoxide detector but it does so much more. It actually lets you play music with some built-in premium speakers and you can use simple, hands-free commands with built-in Alexa. So, she can play The Money Pit, she can help your kids with homework, she can give you all kinds of advice and guidance, even show you how to get out of the front door in an emergency.

It’s really great. It’s going to alert you on your cell phone in the event of a smoke or carbon-monoxide emergency, no matter where you are. And it also has voice-and-location technology to alert users to the type of danger and its location. I mean that’s huge. You can get ahead of things before you even know something’s happening, all when you’re in the house. This is fantastic.

Check it out at Onelink.FirstAlert.com. Again, it’s worth 250 bucks but it’s going out to one random listener.

TOM: Make that you. Pick up the phone, give us a call right now. The number is 1-888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Linda in Ohio is on the line and needs some advice on purchasing a generator. How can we help you? By the way, great idea.

LINDA: Is it possible to use a generator when you live in an apartment?

TOM: So are you talking about what kind of generator – like a portable generator or a standby generator?

LINDA: Maybe some standby if my power goes out.

TOM: So, for an apartment, you have to understand that a standby generator or a whole-house generator is something that’s permanently installed, Linda. So the answer would be no. That said, you could use a portable generator but of course, you’d have to run wires – extension cords – from the generator itself into the house. So it’s not very convenient.

There is something called a “transfer switch” that can work for a portable generator where it’s kind of like having a mini-electrical panel inside. But again, it’s something that requires some installation. And generally, when it’s an apartment, you can’t do that. So, the only thing you could really do would be to have a portable generator: one that you took out of storage, put outside – because you can’t run it in the apartment – and then run extension cords in to try to deal with that short-term, hopefully, power outage.

LINDA: Wow. That sounds like it would be difficult.

TOM: Yeah. It’s not the best answer but it’s – see, because generators are something that are permanently installed into the building’s sort of core electrical system? And that’s why it’s real important that they be done correctly. You can’t – when you install these transfer switches inside, they have technology built into them to prevent what’s called a “backfeed,” so that electricity doesn’t go back through the wiring and can hurt a lineman, for example, that’s working on the power lines. So, you can’t really run it without the transfer switch and that has to be permanently installed. And the generator itself is a very big appliance. That said, a portable generator is much smaller.

Now, if you just want to power a couple of things, you could use a very small generator. Generac has one that’s called the iQ that’s 2,000 watts. That’s under 1,000 bucks and will power a fair number of household items: small appliances, lights, that sort of thing. But you have some options there. But again, you have to use an extension cord.

LINDA: OK. Well, thank you.

TOM: Alright, Linda. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

Well, if you’ve been thinking about a remodeling project and wondering what to do with your ceiling, I’ll bet there’s one ceiling that you’re probably not even thinking of considering and that is a drop ceiling.

LESLIE: They look old and dated, right? But you might want to give drop ceilings a second look because those coming out today can be absolutely stunning.

Now, there are multiple options for ceiling tiles. And as with any DIY project, it’s important to balance simplicity, cost, appearance and a lot of other factors. But today, you can find drop ceilings that look like old-fashioned tin ceilings, wood paneling and really, so much more. You know, you can get a coffered-ceiling look that would take a craftsman hours and days to create, not to mention cost hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Plus, with the right kind of finish, it’s really hard to tell that they actually are drop ceilings.

TOM: Yeah. And with a drop ceiling, you really have countless choices for color and texture and material. But with drywall, you’re limited to what color you want to paint it. And while white’s generally a great color for smaller spaces because of the sense of openness, if you’re looking for something bold or different, you could look at some colored, textured tiles, for example, with those drop ceilings. And that could be a really cool idea.

LESLIE: Yeah. First of all, if you want to make sure that a drop ceiling is going to work for you, you’ve got to consider the available headspace. Now, it’s not just a practical consideration but an aesthetic one, as well.

Now, you really have to consider that space above the window frame to the ceiling. Keep in mind, when you install a drop ceiling you’re going to lose about 6 to 8 inches of headroom. So if you can’t sacrifice that space, that might not be an option for you. But in a lot of cases, you can. And depending on the profile of the tile you pick, it will then sort of increase or decrease that headspace even more. But a grander drop ceiling can sometimes make a space feel much, much, much larger. So you’ve got to consider your ceiling height, where that window falls into the space to the ceiling before you make that final decision. Because it will make a huge difference.

TOM: Now, one last benefit of drop ceilings is this: they do provide for easy access if any of your mechanical systems are behind them, like pipes and wiring. And that’s especially useful if you use a drop ceiling in say, for example, a finished basement. So, take a second look. I think you’ll be really surprised. And the next time I do my kitchen, I want to take a look at the ceilings that look like tin. I’ve seen these fantastic, sort of patina-paint jobs that you can do on it and it really is a gorgeous look.

LESLIE: And they’re gorgeously detailed. Then after – you have to do a great paint job on it to achieve that affect. But keep in mind there’s some great metallic paints out there. If you’re looking for just a straight copper look or a metal look to create that tin, you can very easily. Now, Tom is talking about the verdigris, which is a little bit of faux finishing in there. But done right, it’s gorgeous.

John in New York is on the line with a fungus issue. What’s going on at your money pit?

JOHN: Well, the thing is I heard about your substance – whatever treatment it was. It was called Spray & Forget. And I wondered if there was such a preparation for internal use in a house, like basement walls.

TOM: OK. So what are you seeing in your basement walls?

JOHN: Well, I think I do have some dampness in the basement and possible fungus and I thought…

TOM: And so you would like to make that go away. And when you look at these walls, does it look kind of like white and gray and crusty?

JOHN: Yeah, in some areas. And it’s just a few places.

TOM: OK. So the white, gray, crusty stuff is not a fungus. It’s not mold. It’s not mildew. It’s mineral-salt deposits. What happens when a basement gets damp, the water evaporates from the – or goes from the groundwater and gets drawn into the basement walls and then evaporates out. And it leaves its mineral-salt deposits behind. And I’ll tell you an easy way to prove that that’s exactly what’s going on here is grab some white vinegar, put a bit in a spray bottle and spray it on that gray substance. You’re going to see the salt melt away when it strikes the vinegar. And you’ll know for sure that’s exactly what it is.

The only time you’re going to want to use a mildicide, like a bleach-and-water solution in a scenario like that, is when you truly do have mold or a fungus. And that’s almost never – it almost never grows on a block wall. It always grows on something that’s more organic, like a drywall or wood, paper. The block wall, I mean it’s possible you can get mold on it because sometimes you get dust that sticks to it and the dust feeds the mold. But usually, it’s mineral-salt deposits that’s indicative of just a damp basement.

What I would also tell you to do is, after you get that cleaned up, is to look outside your house and make sure that your gutters are clean and free-flowing and those downspouts are well away from the house. I’m talking like 4 to 6 feet because that will stop a lot of that water from collecting at that foundation perimeter and pulling up into those walls. Does that make sense?

JOHN: Yes, yes. I appreciate your time, man.

TOM: You’re very welcome, John. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.

LESLIE: Just ahead, when you pick out the paint for your project, do you spend as much time picking out the paintbrush that you’re going to apply it with? Probably not. You’re probably really focused on that color and then maybe what the right sheen is.

Well, you should be paying that much attention to the brush. We’re going to tell you why, after this.

TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show where home solutions live. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

Well, fall is the perfect time of year for DIYers to take on a painting project. But too often, their focus is on picking the right paint – the color, the type – and not actually picking the right paintbrush or roller to apply it with.

TOM: Yep. That is definitely true. And the fact of the matter is if you use a lousy brush, you’re going to get a lousy result. Well, our next guest has a mission to make sure that that doesn’t happen to you. She is Erica Yacobozzi, the brand manager for Purdy Professional Painting Tools.

Welcome, Erica.

ERICA: Hi. Thanks for having me on the show. Appreciate it.

TOM: So, I think this is definitely a scene that we have seen play out time after time. People are spending a lot of time making that color selection and the quality selection and looking at paint chips and samples and all of that. And then the last thing they do is – “Oh, yeah, I need a paintbrush,” and they throw a sponge brush or something in the basket and expect to get a good job out of it. And that just doesn’t do the trick.

ERICA: That is correct, yeah. We do see a lot of consumers that do that, especially DIYers. But they spend a lot of time painting in the – picking the paint color and the paint they’re going to use but then they don’t invest in their application tools, so their paintbrushes or their rollers.

And Purdy, what we do is we actually have products that are really chosen by the professional painters but are just as great for the DIYers. So, we want to make sure that with our products – with our brushes and rollers – that you’re getting the perfect finish every time. Because the last thing you want to do is spend hours painting and then going back and having to redo it because the applicator didn’t give you the right result. So, with Purdy, that’s not going to happen.

TOM: Well, exactly. And I think the things that happen when you use an inferior brush or roller is you get lousy paint distribution, right? The paint runs out quick on the brush, which means you’re going back to the bucket many more times. You can’t get a sharp line like when you’re trying to cut in around corners and trim and stuff like that. You’re going to get brushstrokes or marks or the absolute worst: you get bristles that come off the brush and get stuck in your wet paint. Ugh. I hate when that happens.

ERICA: Yes.

TOM: And that’s why you need a good-quality brush. And you guys have been making brushes since 1925, which is pretty amazing. One of the things I found interesting about your operation is that you actually have brush makers that have been making brushes for 20 or 30 years. Is that right?

ERICA: That’s correct, yeah. Our brushes have been handcrafted in the U.S.A. – in Portland, Oregon – since 1925. And they continue to this day, so it’s a really great quality story. Made in America. And like you said, our brush makers, a lot of times they’ve been making brushes for 20 or 30 years. They really take pride in their work. They’re craftsmen, too; they want to make sure that their brushes are perfect before it even leaves our Portland facility – our Portland, Oregon facility.

LESLIE: I love that each one of your brush makers sort of signs the brush with a sticker that’s special to them. I love it. It’s like the original maker movement. It’s fantastic.

ERICA: Yeah, they’re like artists, like mini-artists that actually – they’re so proud they’re putting their signature on every brush and – because they’re proud of it, which is really exciting. And we actually have some pro painters that actually find brushes that are made by certain brush makers, because they have an affinity towards that brush maker. So, kind of …

Now, Erica, aside from brushes, Purdy makes pretty much every other painting tool that you might need. I want to ask you about rollers. Now, that is something that I have seen many times over the years. You know, you think you’re buying a good roller but at some point – and usually when you’re not too far into the process, the roller sort of breaks down and you start to get those roller marks that are left as you pass over the wall. Why does that happen and what are the differences in the way the roller is made that will stop it from happening with a Purdy product?

ERICA: Yeah, that’s a great question. We hear that complaint a lot, especially for DIYers. Once again, they’re purchasing the paint, they’re not thinking about the roller. They’re grabbing one of those really cheap rollers and not thinking, “Oh, if I actually get – spend a little bit more, you get a quality product from Purdy, I’m not going to have those problems.”

What’s happening is actually the fabric is breaking down and matting, because the quality of the fabric that’s actually on a roller cover isn’t durable and it’s not lasting. But with Purdy, you’re going to keep dipping that roller in the paint and kind of putting it up to different conditions. And it’s going to withstand that, so you’re not going to get those marks in your wall. You’re not going to get the lint on your wall, which is kind of like that whole getting bristles stuck in your paint. You’re not going to get the lint stuck in your paint that you’re going to have to go in and pick out afterwards.

So, our fabric is really great fabric. We have cores that are made out of plastic. They’re not cardboard, where other brands have cardboard cores that are in the roller cover that break down after it gets soggy with paint. We really want to make sure our products are durable, stand up to really every painting condition.

TOM: And speaking of durable, I read a story once where you actually have pros that are handing their brushes down to their kids. And that’s how long these brushes can last when they’re properly cared for.

ERICA: Yep. Yeah, yeah. That’s the key. You do have to properly care for it. Because if you don’t take the time to clean it afterwards, you’re probably not going to be able to pass it down. But for those that do take care of it, it is something that lasts a really long time.

TOM: Alright. I’ve got to ask you this. So, what is the proper way to clean a paintbrush? Let’s say it’s latex paint. What’s the proper way? Hot water? Cold water? I mean how do you do it?

ERICA: Sure. As long as you have a sink or some sort of water, room temperature. You don’t want it to be too hot or too cold. And you really want to make sure that you’re not using something hard, like a wire brush. Because some people that are cleaning out with a wire brush, well, that’s going to cause some bristles to fall out because you’re actually trying to pull out the bristles.

Yeah, you just take your hands with water and just ensure that – you just really have to take the time to make sure the water runs out 100 percent.

TOM: Right.

ERICA: So, really, that’s it. It’s just the time.

TOM: I imagine a good-quality brush is actually easier to clean. Sometimes, if you don’t have a good brush, the paint does get stuck deep in the bristles. But if it’s a good brush, it probably cleans better, as well.

ERICA: Yes. You are correct. Yep. Definitely.

TOM: Well, it’s good information. It’s a great product. And we’re making like these are super expensive; they’re really not. You can get a three-pack of Purdy brushes starting at around 20 bucks. So, definitely need to consider the Purdy products when you’re in the store. Their XL line is great for DIYers because it can really handle any type of paint.

Erica Yacobozzi, the brand manager for Purdy Professional Paint Tools, thanks so much for stopping by The Money Pit.

ERICA: Thank you, guys.

TOM: And you can review the entire line at Purdy.com – P-u-r-d-y.com.

LESLIE: Hey, everybody. Are you looking forward to that first crackling fire? Well, hold that match until you’re sure that your fireplace and chimney are safe and secure. We’ll tell you what to look for, after this.

TOM: Making good homes better, welcome back to The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Pick up the phone and give us a call, right now, with your home improvement question at 888-MONEY-PIT presented by HomeAdvisor. They really have the best local pros for any home service.

LESLIE: That’s right. Doesn’t matter what the project is, they make it fast and easy to find top-rated pros.

TOM: And there are no membership fees. It’s 100-percent free to us. HomeAdvisor.com.

Well, whether or not you’ve used your fireplace yet this season, don’t light another match just yet. Fireplaces and chimneys do have a big job to do. And making sure they’re up for it is really key to your family’s safety.

LESLIE: Yeah. Seasonal chimney maintenance is going to ensure that the smoke, fire, ember, ashes are all going to stay contained in that fireplace and in the chimney. Now, they’re also going to check for creosote. And that’s a highly combustible buildup that can lead to chimney fires.

Now, your chimney has got to be checked for creosote at least once a year or maybe after about 80 fires. You can head on over to HomeAdvisor.com and find a certified chimney sweep with good reviews right there.

TOM: Now, even a safe fireplace can also use some backup, so you want to make sure that you put a non-flammable rug in front of the fireplace to keep all those loose sparks from damaging your floors or worse. And if your wood is not dry enough, you’ll get more sparks. Because what happens is the moisture in the wood sort of boils, right? And those little gas pockets pop and that’s what sends those sparks flying. So, important you have those floors protected.

LESLIE: Yeah. And here’s another thing I think people forget a lot until, all of a sudden, you have an unwanted visitor in the house. Make sure that you’ve got chimney caps on. You want to have them installed. It’s going to keep wildlife from using your chimney as a passageway into your home. It’s nice and warm in there. They’re finding an easy way into the house and you don’t want that to happen.

I remember we first bought our house, a squirrel came down through the chimney. And luckily, we had those glass doors on the fireplace when we moved in. And we heard a ruckus and we couldn’t believe it that there was, literally, a squirrel sitting in there.

TOM: It’s funny because I remember one of my early years as a home inspector, I always would look up the chimney, right, from the fireplace? And I was lifting that damper door and it was heavy. I’m thinking, “This is weird. It’s heavy.”

LESLIE: Oh, no. What was in there?

TOM: So, listen – so I lift the damper door up and then a tail drops through the door. It’s like, “Whoa.”

LESLIE: Oh, my goodness. Was it alive or dead?

TOM: So there was – I think it – no, I think it – oh, it was alive. Very alive. I think it was a raccoon. And I think I scared him more than he scared me. And so he scampered out the chimney.

LESLIE: I don’t know. I feel like you can’t scare a raccoon. They’ve got masks on and they don’t seem very shifty.

TOM: Yeah. Well, listen, another thing to do is to also clean out your firebox. And that’s the area where logs burn. And you want to be sure, though, when you clean it out you take those ashes that you pull out. Even if they seem to be completely out, totally cool, don’t trust it. Always, always, always put those ashes in a metal container and keep it well away from the outside of your house. Don’t store it near the fireplace, don’t store it next to your wall. Get it away from your house. I can’t tell you how many times those ashes fire back up and they can cause a serious problem with your house, a serious fire. So make sure you get them away from your house.

LESLIE: Now we’re heading to South Dakota where Esther has a garage question. What can we do for you today?

ESTHER: Well, we have a long, skinny garage with one door. And I would like to extend the cement floor, of course, and loosen all those bolts that fasten it to the cement and turn it on its side and put two doors or a double door on this long side so we could fit two cars in there.

TOM: So you want to take the door from the end of the house – where it just basically opens up to this long, extra-long garage – and you want to swing the doors over to the side of the house so you can have room for a double door. Is that correct?

ESTHER: Yeah. I just want to turn the garage. I’d leave the hole on the end, you know. I would make that into a sliding door instead of overhead door so it wouldn’t get in the way of the trams up on top.

TOM: Right.

ESTHER: But someone said that they didn’t think that that way – then the tracks would be going parallel with the stringers across the top.

TOM: So your first challenge here – before we talk about yours doors, because that’s the last thing that you have to deal with. The first challenge is you have to actually structurally change that long side of the house to be able to have these now two large garage doors in it. So that is going to require rebuilding those walls. And is this a two-story house on that side?

ESTHER: OK, no. This is not an attached garage. This is a free-standing garage.

TOM: So on that long side, though, is that where the roof sits?

ESTHER: Yes.

TOM: The roof rafters come down on that side? Alright. So that is a load-bearing wall, Esther, so it has to be reframed for a standard garage opening. That’s a big job. This is not just a matter of moving the tracks over and knocking out a few 2x4s. This is a big job. You’re going to have to have a header across that that serves as a beam that’s going to support that roof.

ESTHER: Now, would it be better to have one wide, wide door with the beam across or two separate doors with a column in?

TOM: Just as much work. Doesn’t matter.

ESTHER: Oh. OK.

TOM: Big job. Not a do-it-yourself job. A job for a pro. Frame that out and then you’ll – and then you could – perhaps you could preserve the old garage door and move it to one side. But I’ve got to tell you, garage doors are a real pain-in-the-neck to take apart. They’ve got about a million pieces to them and they’re a lot easier to put together when you start all disassembled and are built in place.

ESTHER: Well, we have turned garages before, in different places where we live.

TOM: Alright. So this is a project that you are very familiar with, except in this case, you’re going to have to reframe that exterior wall. And that is the bigger part of this project.

ESTHER: OK.

LESLIE: Still to come, holiday celebrations mean a lot of food, which can mean a lot of cooking. If you want to make your kitchen a safe and functional place to make that food prep easier, stick around. We’ve got advice on how to do just that, when The Money Pit continues.

TOM: Making good homes better, this is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: What are you working on? If it’s your house, your condo, your yurt, whatever you call home, give us a call with your how-to questions at 888-666-3974, which happens to spell 888-MONEY-PIT. And that’s presented by HomeAdvisor. You can find out what it costs to do your home project before you hire a pro. And you can instantly book one of HomeAdvisor’s top-rated pros for free.

LESLIE: Alright. But while you’re online, post your question to The Money Pit Community section and we will answer them, just like we always do every week. And first up, we’ve got one here from Ann in Florida.

Now, Ann writes: “I live in a second-floor condo of a three-story building. The neighbor next to me just discovered that she has black mold growing on several of her walls. I have walls that are adjacent to some of them. Should I worry?”

TOM: Well, certainly it’s an issue that’s got to be dealt with. I would be a little bit concerned. I’d like to know what the cause of the mold is, whether it’s being started by a leak, for example, in the building. Because it could be growing in the walls before it starts to grow on the walls.

What I would recommend, Ann, is that you document what’s happening here in a letter to the condo management. And just don’t put a maintenance ticket in but make sure it’s documented. Because the faster it gets fixed, the lower your risk.

LESLIE: Yeah. You’ve got to jump on that mold quickly because it can spread so fast. And you just don’t want to mess with it.

TOM: Well, many of us will be spending more and more time in the kitchen as we get ready for holiday celebrations and all sorts of festivities throughout the new year. So, if you’re looking for shortcuts to make that process a little bit easier, Leslie has got tips on how to create a kitchen that is safe and functional, in today’s edition of Leslie’s Last Word.

Leslie, take it away.

LESLIE: You know, it’s true. I really do love cooking for my family and my friends but there are several tips and tricks that I always keep in mind to make sure that I’m working safely and I’m working smart.

First of all, you’ve got to remember that raw poultry can carry Salmonella. And preparing it requires an extra step of disinfecting. You’ve got to wash your hands often. You should use a plastic cutting board, not wood because that wood’s just going to hold all those germs in the small cuts on that board’s surface. And if you want some quicker cleanup, what I tend to do – and it depends on what else I’m working on and how many cutting boards have gotten use – you can flip over that board right after you do the poultry prep. But you have to make sure that you wipe down that counter with a disinfectant afterwards. And even if I’m switching to another cutting board, I always wipe everything down in between there, including the faucet and the handles to turn the water on and off. Because it gets everywhere, the poultry, and you just don’t want to get anybody sick.

Now, heavy pots and pans, they can be tricky on their own just to move them from place to place. So when you’re filling, you want to place the pot on the stove first and then add your ingredients. You can get an extra-long hose for your sink sprayer so you can fill the pots with water without moving them. Granted, you’ll still have to move them after things are cooked but it’s one initial step saving yourself from moving something heavy.

Now, lighting. A lot of times, you think of the kitchen, you want to have mood lighting but you really need to have task lighting. And it’s not difficult to do. You can stick on those LEDs – they run on batteries – and put them under your cabinets. Because that’s going to help you really see what you’re working on in the kitchen. And this is the busy time of year in there, so you have to make sure you can see what you’re doing. I mean nobody wants a half-stuffed turkey. Am I right, you guys?

Finally, you’ve got to remember that half of all burns treated in the ER result from a scalding injury. So make sure that you set your home’s water temperature to 120 degrees. And that’s going to avoid water coming from the tap at a dangerous temperature. You might have people in your house who aren’t used to the water temperature range in your home, so just help everybody stay safe this holiday season. And enjoy it and enjoy your family and your friends and all the tasty foods of the season.

TOM: Good tip.

This is The Money Pit Home Improvement Show. Coming up next time on the program, have you ever had a deal with a drippy, leaky faucet? Well, faucets have come a long way and now they’ve got better valves and finishes. So we’re going to share how you can find faucets that can deliver years of drip-free use, on the very next edition of The Money Pit.

I’m Tom Kraeutler.

LESLIE: And I’m Leslie Segrete.

TOM: Remember, you can do it yourself …

LESLIE: But you don’t have to do it alone.

END HOUR 2 TEXT

(Copyright 2018 Squeaky Door Productions, Inc. No portion of this transcript or audio file may be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of Squeaky Door Productions, Inc.)